We live in a post-apocalyptic nation. Whatever the earthquakes this spring left incomplete in educating us on the horrors of living in a Cormac McCarthy novel, our friendly neighbor to the south made it a point to thoroughly tutor us.
The world can afford to continue its armchair debate on whether India is really blockading Nepal. For those of us who have been bearing the brunt of it for over two months, the question that urgently needs an answer is rather: Why are we, a non-aligned nation that seeks to maintain good relations with neighbors and the world at large, being blockade-bombed while the rest of the world watches as if we deserve this?
Our new constitution, portrayed by some for reasons unknown as one of the most discriminatory in the world, has gone through enough scrutiny in the past months to make anyone in the right mind conclude that it isn’t really dustbin-material.
Nowhere in this imperfect world populated by fallible beings has anything been produced that was final at birth. The imperfect constitution we adopted on September 20th isn’t at all a document to be ashamed of.
A close evaluation of the main objections to the constitution from a section of our population agitating in a few districts in Tarai reveals that questions related to proportional representation, electoral constituencies, and citizenship aren’t really as big as they have been made out to be, through deliberate and organized misinformation and misinterpretation.
Borrowing from assertions of those leading the agitation, these demands appear to be mere diversions from the main demand—provincial boundary. The Morcha is yet to explain, however, why including Sunsari, Morang and Jhapa districts—which are dominated by non-Madheshi people and where there is very little support for the agitation—in province 2 is so important for Madhesh. Less still have they been able to explain what they would gain from a province created for the Tharus, who are not Madheshis.
The question we started with, however, pertains to the Indian blockade. Why has India thrown its weight behind a small radical section of a community which, even if it were wholly agitating, constitutes just 20 percent of Nepal’s population? Why is India willing to alienate at least 80 percent people of its historically friendliest neighbor? Why is it risking international notoriety, the label of a rogue state or that of an errant bull that’s unconcerned about what its actions are making it look like?
The blockade has gone on for too long to make us buy that this is just because Nepal retained secularism, ignoring the wishes of India’s powerful Sangh Parivar of seeing Nepal revert to a Hindu state, possibly to inspire something similar in India. That the blockade has been imposed because of the oft-touted ‘roti-beti relationship across our southern border is no longer humorous even to the most humorously-inclined.
A ruthless blockade like the one we have faced must have a much bigger reason—a desperately sought concession vastly more valuable than global image and ties with a neighbor.
Some hard facts help understand why we are being squeezed.
Fresh water, the share of water that can actually be used for drinking and irrigation, accounts for just 2.5 percent of planet earth’s total water reserves. Not all of that is accessible to humans for use, because over 90 percent of freshwater is frozen somewhere in the Arctic and the Antarctic. Only around one percent of world’s fresh water is available to humans in lakes, rivers, and underground aquifers.
Now let’s get closer to home.
India is among the most freshwater-challenged nations in the world, with the national supply predicted to fall 50 percent below demand in the next 15 years. According to the World Water Resources Institute, India’s 54 percent population is already under very high water stress. Particularly high stressed are areas in northern India.
India is predicted to become the world’s most populous nation by 2022, overtaking China. Already home to about 1.3 billion people, India’s population is growing by about 15 million annually, or about half the total population of Nepal.
China, that has significantly bigger water reserves, is moving fast to secure more of this resource by building mega-projects like the recently-concluded Zangmu hydropower project in Tibet. Although China calls this a run-of-river project to assure India that it won’t impact downstream flow of water on the Brahmaputra, massive dams built as part of the project have disconcerted Indian observers.
What such projects are called doesn’t matter. What they do is more important. Apart from producing electricity, such projects also regulate nature by controlling the flow of water, always in favor of the more powerful riparian party—in this case, China.
Brahma Chellaney, a geo-strategist, recently wrote, “No country faces a bigger challenge than India from China’s throttlehold over the headwaters of Asia’s major transnational rivers and its growing capacity to serve as the upstream controller by re-engineering trans-boundary flows through dams.”
In water politics, they say there are just two ways for water-scarce nations to survive. The first is through better management of available water and cooperation with neighbors. The second is to grab as much water as you can from your neighbor.
At least in the foreseeable future India cannot afford the second option, when it comes to negotiating with China over freshwater.
It is perhaps unnecessary, too, because India has sitting right above her a politically unstable neighbor that was plundered and ravaged by war and nature in turns, and now by protests against the most progressive constitution her people ever wrote.
The blockade has all the elements of being the attempted final nail in the coffin for this nation that is home to the most famous Himalayan range, which isn’t incidentally also a perennial source of sweet freshwater.
Utilizing this water is essential for India’s survival. But unregulated water has little value. To regulate this water, mega projects are needed. And negotiating such projects with loyal provincial governments will be a lot easier than negotiating with a central government in Kathmandu that changes colors and allegiances like weather.
The story is simple.
It’s about survival—a zero-sum game of survival.
It can still be about co-existence, though.
Beat the summer heat
The author's novel 'Unlikely Story Teller' was released in July
